


Chasing the Rabbit

by HarbingerofGeek



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Cancer, Gen, The Drift
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-07-20
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-20 20:06:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 459
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/891323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HarbingerofGeek/pseuds/HarbingerofGeek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A Pacific Rim ficlet from Raleigh's POV about his first Drift experience with his brother.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chasing the Rabbit

The first time I Drifted with my brother, I saw my mother’s deathbed face, grey and not yet made up with the awful makeup they use for viewings. She was dead but not yet plastic, if that makes any sense. 

I was floating and I couldn’t get my feet on the ground, and my brain kept trying to detach itself from my skin, and I just wanted to touch my mother’s face one last time, crawl into bed next to her, like I used to when I was five, and she was reading Austen while having a late-night smoke. 

I still have a cigarette, sometimes, when I want to remember her. Yancy always called it morbid, but I can never remember my mother’s face without first remembering her smell — all stale cigarette smoke and breath mints and hand sanitizer from her shifts at the hospital. 

My mother’s face was grey, and then everything stopped, and began to move backwards. I could see everything — could see her slow pulse start again in her neck, and the pink creep back into her skin. I watched the grey recede like a tide abandoning the shore. She opened her eyes, and looked at me.

"How long have I been out?" she asked. Then, just like she always did when I came home from school to find her asleep, she asked, “Can I make you coffee?"

She casually detached herself from every wire and tube as though she’d always slept with IVs and heart rate monitors. She put her feet into her slippers, and suddenly we were back in her old bedroom, with the crucifix above her bed, and the stack of Austen novels on her bedside table. She always said you could learn everything about human nature in a hospital or an Austen novel. I guess she was a glutton for punishment. 

I couldn’t seem to get my feet on the ground to follow her as she left the room. My head was hurting and the aura made the air in the room look like a mirage. I think I knew something was wrong, but I just wanted to go and have a coffee and a smoke with my mom. But the migraine was getting worse, and then dark cold air hit my face, and I was in Yancy’s arms, crying like a baby, and punching him in the chest. He just held me. It took me a few minutes to realize he’d seen the whole thing: our dead mother coming back to life inside my head. And somehow he’d reached in and pulled me back out.

I don’t know why I’m telling you all this. But everyone chases the rabbit. Don’t be too hard on yourself. We’ll figure this thing out together.


End file.
